He wasn’t just listening. He was absorbing, taking in every word like she was preaching a sermon imparted by the Goddess. The intensity in his eyes radiated his need to know. The range of emotions - from anger to sorrow - marring his face show that he wasn’t just listening, he was connecting with her, feeling these things with her, and it was that very action that drew her physically closer to him, because emotionally, she was already attached.

Her throat flexed a hard swallow, and she threw out the biggest confession of the night, “I’m not with the hunters because I want to be.” Admitting it to herself, in...